Rare’s pirate journey, Sea of Thieves, introduced an extremely contentious cosmetic item; therefore, if such an item could be bought, it would have cost 196,900 gold coins: Progress Pride Flag. Had it been a straightforward rally for inclusivity, there would be no noise on Twitter occurring between supporters and detractors.
The official Twitter said since life for all had been blessed with this Sea of Thieves, whether old or young, sex or gender, race or religion, nationality, preference in sexual orientation, and creed. It was used for the inclusive message that some people of the player base did not like. Within seconds overbearingly loud replies came in, some supporting the message whilst others formed obstructions to it.
Others on the other side found irony in the whole thing. “Crazy how a lot of the player base get mad at this even though you guys already had a pride flag in the game,” TopazCrab commented. Then JerseyDee22 called it that “political cult flag” while defending the national flags as “real flags.” Things got toxic really fast, with zcampbellvolI supplying Wikipedia links to inform everyone of the history of the rainbow flag, and MrM1lkyGaming stood his ground that it was political.
The drama hit its peak when some players outright threatened to quit over the addition. LegendHarv2000 sarcastically fired back: “Aren’t you the guys constantly calling us easily offended snowflakes? You’re leaving a game because of a flag you can just choose not to buy? Genuinely pathetic behaviour.”
The absurdity is that this is not even the first Pride for Sea of Thieves-the game has previously featured pride flags. But the new one-The Progress Pride Flag, which has extra stripes for communities of marginalized color and transgender-must be stirring souls. Amid the chaos, Ashyra_ said it best: “There are bad apples in every batch. Judge people for who they are individually.”
That “participating territories” phrase in that announcement spawned some eyebrow-wagging remarks. Everything I Say Is A Joke summed it up with: “No balls, say it’s the Middle East. Savages.” So some might indicate potential regional restrictions that Rare has not commented on yet.
The long-timers like x_hayes_x reminded everyone that “Rare and SoT has been inclusive since the beginning.” And they are right; this is the very game that lets you argue over what sea shanty to play with a crew of pirates, irrespective of who they are outside the game. It gets downright silly when you consider we’re talking about completely optional cosmetic items in a cartoonish game about pirates.
One thing that shined through throughout the Twitter war: Sea of Thieves is still inclusively true. Accept that or rage-quit over a colorful flag. The seas might have been open to all, but it appears some pirates are ready to walk the plank rather than sit under the rainbow. That’s a loss for them; the rest of us are already busy counting gold and enjoying the scenery.
Anyway, if that flag is your kryptonite? No one is forcing you to purchase it. My gut tells me the loudest complaints came from those folks who weren’t exactly admiring their ship’s flag anyway. So they better focus on not getting sunk by a louder crew waving those Progress Pride colors-Now that would be embarrassing.
